As a contribution to the question so familiar to
Anglo-Indians of where to go on retirement, we give below (says the Indian
Daily News, Calcutta) an extract from a private letter, dated Tauranga, New
Zealand, June 24th: "Should you happen to know any old Indians who are
leaving the glorious East, and whose income will not allow of their living up
to the mark in England, you may safely recommend them to come to this country.
The climate is charming — warmer than Naples in winter, cool as Devonshire in
summer. All English and semi-tropical fruits grow luxuriantly apples, pears,
guavas, pomegranates. The bees gather honey all the year. The busy ones collect
it from the clover paddocks and from the blue gum trees, and in quality,
flavour, and colour, it is quite equal to the Narbonne. Any family with a
capital of £2,000, and an income of from £200 to £300 per annum would enjoy
life here. From 8 to 10 per cent, can be obtained on first-class mortgage
securities. Five hundred pounds would buy a compact little estate of from 20 to
30 acres within a couple of miles from the town, and a property thus situated
would early increase in value. A like sum would build an excellent 8 or 10-roomed
bungalow, coach-house, stable, and outhouse. Two or three horses, and a like
number of cows, would find plenty in the paddocks, and the owner, if energetic,
might turn a dollar or two by cropping four to five acres in potatoes, or in
mangles or turnips as winter feed for his milch cows, whose butter would find
at that season a ready sale at 1s 6d per lb. Education is cheap, for the
Government provides it gratis for all classes. The private schools have to
considerably reduce their charges to induce parents to patronise them. Auckland
and Otago possess first-class agricultural colleges. Should any of your friends
or clients think of coming here I shall be delighted to answer any question
pertaining to the place." The foregoing extract contains far more real
information and sound advice than is obtainable by the ordinary means of
pamphlets, guide books, etc. The idea suggested of men of education and
moderate means coming to Tauranga is the very thing that is required. An advent
of a few dozen families would work quite an effectual change, and would yield
what is now so much in demand, namely, a settled community possessing tastes
and experience, and an education formed by the Old Country model and drawn from
its institutions. The correspondent is unquestionably right in the views
expressed, and those who are thinking of Tauranga as a spot likely to provide
the desiderata, will do well to bear in mind that, whatever the farmer proper
may do (the man who has tilled and laboured his hundreds of acres), the counsel
to the man of small capital and modest income is, you cannot commence with too
little land, but the acquisition of too much is very simple, the
"indulgences" of banks quite notorious, and the result a foregone
conclusion. The man of education should not be ambitious beyond his powers if
his income is small, his moral presence is great, and we are now in that state
of transition from the primitive to the more enlightened modes of thought, and
such an acquisition to our population would be far more acceptable than a
millionaire or two.
....
A
stranger in a country printing office asked the youngest apprentice what his
rule of punctuation was. Said the boy, "I setup as long as I can hold my
breath, and then I put a comma; when I gape, I insert a semicolon and when I
want a sneeze I make a paragraph."
"Where to Go on Retirement from H.M. Service."
Bay Of Plenty Times,
4 October 1883, 2.
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